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Let’s sum up their “brilliant” World Cup then....didn’t need to play Brazil, Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, Holland, Spain nor Argentina. They lost to a country with a population of 4m folk and 11m folk and narrowly defeated Tunisia, scraped past Colombia on penalties and narrowly defeated an extremely poor Sweden side. 

Brilliant?? Bottle crashed big time.

Their campaign brought a lot of happiness to a lot of people but some of the subsequent assessments of the strength of the England team are laughable. That's the closest any team will ever get to a bye to the semi finals, and the avalanche of anti-Scottish social media posts after every game went way beyond banter.

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17 minutes ago, Duncan Blackheart said:

To respond to the holiganism point, all their ‘top boys’ and other parts of the “significant minority” that follow them completely bottled going to Russia after they deservedly got what for in France. Ironic, really, given that Putin has clearly got the word out that their hooligans have to behave. 

 

Bang on. They had 1,000 or so banned but plenty could travel and never bothered. Although seemed quite a few bit the bullet and travelled last night but nowhere near the numbers they usually have and certainly wouldn't be acting the big shots after they got their arses handed to them in Marseille.

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29 minutes ago, Duncan Blackheart said:

To respond to the holiganism point, all their ‘top boys’ and other parts of the “significant minority” that follow them completely bottled going to Russia after they deservedly got what for in France. Ironic, really, given that Putin has clearly got the word out that their hooligans have to behave. 

 

Am looking forward to the final. A chance for revenge for Croatia after that French lad (Lauren Blanc??) took a dive to get a Croatian red-carded in the ‘98 semi-final.

It was actually the other way round!

Still supporting Croatia though.  :)

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I also like to remind England fans that the last time they beat a world class nation in a competitive game was Argentina in World Cup 2002.

They didn't change that fact at this World Cup, though the way the draw worked out it wouldn't have been till France in the final anyway.

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38 minutes ago, ScottishTyke said:

I also like to remind England fans that the last time they beat a world class nation in a competitive game was Argentina in World Cup 2002.

They didn't change that fact at this World Cup, though the way the draw worked out it wouldn't have been till France in the final anyway.

This is the thing with England, isn't it. They're exceptionally consistent in that they beat teams they're expected to beat and lose to teams they're expected to lose to (those expectations being of a well informed neutral rather than the English press, or most of us). They always qualify at a canter because they're drawn as top seed against a group of teams you'd expect them to beat - and they do. Then when they come up against someone tough, they lose. Exceptional consistency of performance, and I for one welcome it.

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11 hours ago, biffer said:

Scotland fans absolutely destroyed some poor sods car in Paris dancing on it. 

I might be wrong - but i think was a dumped car, which was laying there

might be wrong & was just delapidated - & was being used

either/or - still should not been jumping on it - remember seeing the car like 

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24 minutes ago, biffer said:

This is the thing with England, isn't it. They're exceptionally consistent in that they beat teams they're expected to beat and lose to teams they're expected to lose to (those expectations being of a well informed neutral rather than the English press, or most of us). They always qualify at a canter because they're drawn as top seed against a group of teams you'd expect them to beat - and they do. Then when they come up against someone tough, they lose. Exceptional consistency of performance, and I for one welcome it.

Totally agree, I have said this for years.

 

One reason they get their hopes up is winning some friendlies against Germany, and other big teams Evey now and then.

 

Remember the hysteria when the beat German 3-2 in Germany before euro2016

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26 minutes ago, euan2020 said:

I might be wrong - but i think was a dumped car, which was laying there

might be wrong & was just delapidated - & was being used

either/or - still should not been jumping on it - remember seeing the car like 

Not my recollection, thought it was fine before some arseholes started on it.

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28 minutes ago, biffer said:

This is the thing with England, isn't it. They're exceptionally consistent in that they beat teams they're expected to beat and lose to teams they're expected to lose to (those expectations being of a well informed neutral rather than the English press, or most of us). They always qualify at a canter because they're drawn as top seed against a group of teams you'd expect them to beat - and they do. Then when they come up against someone tough, they lose. Exceptional consistency of performance, and I for one welcome it.

I completely agree, but I think that might also be changing slightly in regards to them beating the lesser teams.

This current generation is a weaker team than the one that has just passed, so even mid-tier international sides now fancy their chances against England. It took last min goals for them to beat us and Solvakia, whilst Iceland knocked them out.

I dare say the golden generation would've beaten Croatia last night as they seemed to have no problems beating 'lesser sides' however such is the decline in quality especially in midfield and defence, I expect to see England beaten by more of the 'lesser sides' in future tournaments. I certainly don't see this tournament as the start of anything special.

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Things that really needle me about England:

In this World Cup it seemed to me that, whichever country was playing, the camera would go on the support and people looked like they were having a real party, going mad and dressing up in colourful gear/mad costumes, women, kids etc. regardless of whether it was an African team, Scandinavian team, South Americans, Japan, etc.

Then the camera would go on the England fans, they look depressing in comparison, mostly loads of blokes. Only people dressed up would be the usual ones dressed as crusaders FFS. Then you get the songs about WWII and German bombers and all that pish. Then they start singing GSTQ and Rule Britannia, fuckin hell. So that sums them up for me, religion, monarchy, WWII and fuckin crusaders. I can’t think of a group of fans i would less want to be around.

The other main thing is:  two years on from Euro 16 their media still refer to losing to Iceland as a disgrace and a debacle. Their ‘experts’ still don’t seem to be aware of Iceland’s record over the last few years and the fact they had won their qualifying group for the Euros ahead of Holland, Turkey and Croatia. Ignorant, arrogant and condescending.

Their brand of football in the World Cup was pish, no creativity whatsoever, complete reliance on getting big lumps forward for set pieces, lumping it forward for Sterling to chase. Their midfield was non-existent. 

Don’t see that a lot has changed, the fact they got to the semis has given people a false impression. They still lost as soon as they came up against a technically better team. If Colombia had played football for 90 minutes they would have won.

As a football fan, relieved England didn’t make the final.

 

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25 minutes ago, The Black Bra said:

Things that really needle me about England:

In this World Cup it seemed to me that, whichever country was playing, the camera would go on the support and people looked like they were having a real party, going mad and dressing up in colourful gear/mad costumes, women, kids etc. regardless of whether it was an African team, Scandinavian team, South Americans, Japan, etc.

Then the camera would go on the England fans, they look depressing in comparison, mostly loads of blokes. Only people dressed up would be the usual ones dressed as crusaders FFS. Then you get the songs about WWII and German bombers and all that pish. Then they start singing GSTQ and Rule Britannia, fuckin hell. So that sums them up for me, religion, monarchy, WWII and fuckin crusaders. I can’t think of a group of fans i would less want to be around.

The other main thing is:  two years on from Euro 16 their media still refer to losing to Iceland as a disgrace and a debacle. Their ‘experts’ still don’t seem to be aware of Iceland’s record over the last few years and the fact they had won their qualifying group for the Euros ahead of Holland, Turkey and Croatia. Ignorant, arrogant and condescending.

Their brand of football in the World Cup was pish, no creativity whatsoever, complete reliance on getting big lumps forward for set pieces, lumping it forward for Sterling to chase. Their midfield was non-existent. 

Don’t see that a lot has changed, the fact they got to the semis has given people a false impression. They still lost as soon as they came up against a technically better team. If Colombia had played football for 90 minutes they would have won.

As a football fan, relieved England didn’t make the final.

 

That pretty much sums it up for me, Croatia were so far ahead of them technically that it was laughable. England really needed to capatalize on that slow start Croatia made. Once Croatia got into their groove it seemed to be a matter of when not if they'd win.

Having said that, if Colombia actually decided to play football for the full 90 rather than wrestle England for three quarters of the match, then England would never have been in a Semi-Final.

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2 hours ago, ScottishTyke said:

I also like to remind England fans that the last time they beat a world class nation in a competitive game was Argentina in World Cup 2002.

They didn't change that fact at this World Cup, though the way the draw worked out it wouldn't have been till France in the final anyway.

According to the ELO ratings, they haven't actually played a team better than them at a major finals since 2004 - when they lost 2-1 to France. They only other games against teams ranked higher than them were against Denmark (R16, 2002) and the aforementioned Argentina (GS, 2002) game - 3-0 and 1-0 wins for them respectively.

Their game against Belgium in the third-place match will be against a team better than them in the ELO ratings.

The ELO ratings give an implied win probability (excluding draws) too, based on the difference the team's ratings. Their record in finals since Euro 2000:

  • Win probably - Record - Points per game
  • >80% - Pld 5 - W4 D1 L0 - P/G 2.60
  • 70-80% - Pld 9 - W4 D4 L1 - P/G 1.78
  • 60-70% - Pld 6 - W2 D3 L1 - P/G 1.50
  • 50-60% - Pld 13 - W2 D4 L7 - P/G 0.77
  • <50% - Pld 4 - W2 D1 L1 - P/G 1.75

Even against teams that they have a greater than 80% chance of beating, they needed two stoppage time winners to have a win percentage above 50% (against Tunisia (GS, 2018) and Wales (GS, 2016)).

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2 minutes ago, Clyde1998 said:

According to the ELO ratings, they haven't actually played a team better than them at a major finals since 2004 - when they lost 2-1 to France. They only other games against teams ranked higher than them were against Denmark (R16, 2002) and the aforementioned Argentina (GS, 2002) game - 3-0 and 1-0 wins for them respectively.

Their game against Belgium in the third-place match will be against a team better than them in the ELO ratings.

The ELO ratings give an implied win probability (excluding draws) too, based on the difference the team's ratings. Their record in finals since Euro 2000:

  • Win probably - Record - Points per game
  • >80% - Pld 5 - W4 D1 L0 - P/G 2.60
  • 70-80% - Pld 9 - W4 D4 L1 - P/G 1.78
  • 60-70% - Pld 6 - W2 D3 L1 - P/G 1.50
  • 50-60% - Pld 13 - W2 D4 L7 - P/G 0.77
  • <50% - Pld 4 - W2 D1 L1 - P/G 1.75

Even against teams that they have a greater than 80% chance of beating, they needed two stoppage time winners to have a win percentage above 50% (against Tunisia (GS, 2018) and Wales (GS, 2016)).

Well I suppose this is a case of statistics can tell one story, but whilst I prefer the ELO rankings to the Fifa ones, they are still flawed.

When I say 'world-class' nations I mean the likes of Brazil, Argentina, France... all the traditional heavyweight international teams. Even when these nations have average teams like Italy in 2012, England still cannot beat them.

This current generation may have more of an identity and style of play, but they would've been mullered by France or any other 'world class' nation.

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13 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

How was that ever going to work anyway with every Croatian player bar the keeper in the opposition half?!? 🤷🏼‍♂️

I think they were all off the pitch at the time (actually on top of some of the photographers!).  Not sure what the exact laws of the game are relating to kick-offs though.

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3 minutes ago, daviebee said:

I think they were all off the pitch at the time (actually on top of some of the photographers!).  Not sure what the exact laws of the game are relating to kick-offs though.

I don't think it would've counted, as the referee hadn't indicated for play to restart following the goal. He was still over by the celebrating Croatia players.

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5 hours ago, biffer said:

Not my recollection, thought it was fine before some arseholes started on it.

can't really remember - likley i seen it after the damage & somebody told me it was a bucket

seem to recall it was one of the barmens from the old alliance

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28 minutes ago, Clyde1998 said:

I don't think it would've counted, as the referee hadn't indicated for play to restart following the goal. He was still over by the celebrating Croatia players.

After looking into it, that is the case. 

Quick thinking by Sterling for once though.

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